MacOS

I recently needed to add Swift Package Manager support to a legacy package that one of my projects was using. The package was originally distributed with CocoaPods. The primary reason for migrating from CocoaPods to SPM is that CocoaPods entered maintenance mode a few months ago. Removing it will future-proof our projects and allow us to use the latest features, such as the buildable folders introduced in Xcode 16. Assumptions Since this was an internal package, I did not need to maintain CocoaPods support. The goal was to replace it entirely with SPM. It is certainly possible to keep both, but that would require some additional work. The project I was working on is considered legacy; no one has touched it in about six years. Once this task is complete, I hope no one will need to update it for another half-dozen years. This allowed me to take some shortcuts, like integrating a third-party dependency directly into the codebase instead of spending time updating it to the latest version. All internal dependencies of your framework already support SPM. With that said, let’s get started. ...

Update: 26/03/25 It looks like Objective-C is still an option in the default iOS project template. You can access it after setting the Interface to “Storyboard”. I hadn’t realized these dropdown menus were interconnected. All credit goes to Douglas for spotting this! tl;dr use macOS → Application → Game or Command Line Tool Recently I wanted to refresh my memory on Objective-C. My first thought was to open Xcode, create a new project with language set to Objective-C and play with it. To my surprise, none of the iOS Application project templates allow you to select any other language than Swift. ...

In this article, I’ll show you how to access a web page’s content, alter it using JavaScript, and display it using your Safari extension’s UI. Specifically, I’ll demonstrate how to display an article’s content in a popover. I often use Large Language Models (LLMs) to summarize articles when I’m unsure if they’re worth reading. Without the extension we’re about to build, I’d need to manually trigger Safari’s reader mode (⌘ + ⇧ + R), copy all content, and paste it into Claude or ChatGPT. This extension is a handy tool that reduces friction! ...

For years, I wanted a way to launch my most-used apps with single-key shortcuts. While I knew tools like Hammerspoon could make this possible, I never found a key combination that felt right. I’d always end up disabling the setup, missing the functionality of keys like right control, caps lock, or escape. Everything changed when I discovered Karabiner Elements’ ability to create distinct mappings for different key events, such as short presses and long presses. The setup I’m about to share lets you launch any mapped app by pressing caps lock plus a specific letter. The best part? You don’t lose the caps lock functionality—it still works as normal when pressed on its own. ...

When adding a local Swift package to your Xcode project, you might encounter the following error: Missing package product `PACKAGE_NAME` The issue often occurs when the package you’re trying to add is already open in Xcode. To resolve: Close the package in Xcode. Close your main project. Reopen your main project. I’m not sure what might be causing this issue or why reopening the project is required (a clean build won’t do). ...

tldr: In order to keep the current Safari window open when you close the last tab, use tab groups. Last month, I once again switched my default web browser to Safari. It has its quirks, but I missed it in a weird way. I initially switched to Firefox because of its stellar support for vim keybindings and some other extensions I started to enjoy. Even with all those improvements, I began to miss some niceties that Safari has built-in. ...

In my current role, we have around 30 projects distributed across roughly 20 different repositories. Most of them are Swift packages for various features used in our apps. This setup requires me to frequently switch between multiple projects. Just a few days ago, I was working on the login flow. This involved modifying two Swift packages and one Xcode project. Remembering whether a given project is a Swift package, a workspace (.xcworkspace), or a standard project (.xcodeproj) is exhausting. This adds unnecessary complexity and slows down the workflow. It would be better if we had a single command to open all of them at once. Here’s a script that does just that: ...

Imagine you’re working on Project A, which relies on Package B, a remote Swift package. To incorporate modifications in B and assess their impact on A, the standard approach requires committing and pushing the changes in B, updating B’s version in A, and then rebuilding A to observe the outcomes. This method is slow and cumbersome. There must be a better way! Project A | └──> Swift Package B To speed up and improve the workflow, you can convert the remote dependency B to a local one. This method works whether Project A is a Swift package or an Xcode project (xcodeproj or xcworkspace). ...

A few months ago, I wrote about Alfred Snippets on iOS. In that article, I described the manual process of converting Alfred text snippets into macOS text replacements. Since then, I’ve had time to refine this project and add some new features. You can download the final Command Line Interface (CLI) or the macOS app from this link. Next on my list is the complete automation of the process of synchronizing Alfred text snippets with macOS text replacements. I’m not sure if it’s even possible, but there’s only one way to find out. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will take me less time than it did before. ...

How to automate adding plugins to all of your existing (and future) targets in a Swift package TL;DR package.targets = package.targets.map { target in var plugins = target.plugins ?? [] plugins.append(.plugin(name: "SwiftLintPlugin", package: "SwiftLint")) target.plugins = plugins return target } The Problem Last month, I was tasked with adding SwiftFormat and SwiftLint to one of the projects my team maintains. The project is medium-sized and uses Swift Package Manager (SPM) for modularization. It has a separate SPM package for each module. For example: ...

Last updated: 13/08/23 I’ve relied on Alfred as my daily driver for boosting productivity for years. However, I didn’t switch from Apple’s Spotlight overnight. It took three attempts before I truly embraced its capabilities. In this article I’ll share my Alfred setup and explain my most frequent workflows. Let’s dive in! The Initial Setup I’ve already described the initial setup in detail in New Mac Setup article, so be sure to check it if you’re interested. ...

Last updated: 20/05/25 This note describes the steps I take when setting up a new Mac. This process could be mostly automated, but I can’t get myself to do it. It takes me around 90 minutes to go through all the steps. Let’s get started! I. Prerequisite Files to Import Before diving into installations, I make sure to have these configuration files ready: .gitconfig .zshrc II. Software Installation Apps marked with “🌕” emoji are optional (it depends if it’s a work or a private Mac). ...

After installing macOS Ventura, I began experiencing connectivity issues when using MX Keys keyboard through Bluetooth. The keyboard would disconnect from my Mac whenever it was inactive for a few minutes. What made this issue especially frustrating was that it didn’t happen every time, and the time it took for the keyboard to reconnect varied widely. It drove me insane. I’ve been following several threads in r/logitech, reaching out to Logitech support multiple times, and submitting bug reports through the Logi Options+ app. However, none of these attempts at resolution have been successful. ...

Alfred allows you to save your frequently used text clips as Snippets. Over the past few years I’ve created hundreds of them. There’s one problem. Alfred snippets only work on your Mac. Today we’ll focus on how we can convert them into macOS snippets. That way, you’ll be able to use them across all your Apple devices! How Alfred stores snippets as a Zip archive. On macOS, you can open it with the Archive Utility app that’s shipped with the system. After successfully exporting it, you’ll need to convert it from Alfred’s data format to the one used by the system snippets. macOS allows to import keyboard snippets in bulk with Property List format files (plist). ...